Sep 7, 2020
Ohio won’t forget Donald Trump’s attacks on workers and broken promises
This Labor Day is like none other in recent memory — the parades have gone virtual, and the backyard picnics are for close family and friends only. Ohio workers are celebrating, but things are a bit more somber than in the past.
As Election Day grows closer, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to distract from his failure to contain the coronavirus threat and the economic devastation caused by the crisis. More than 190,000 Americans have died, and millions are out of work, but Trump is spending all weekend on the golf course.
Here in Ohio, we’ve seen up close how Trump has failed to deliver on his economic promises. Donald Trump is hoping we forget about his broken promises to the people of the Mahoning Valley (“Don’t move, don’t sell your house”). And he’s hoping Ohio workers forget about how he threatened an iconic Ohio company and its workers.
Ohioans won’t forget.
This weekend Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga called out Trump for attacking Goodyear:
At a time when real national leadership could have delivered us through this pandemic, we have a president who is more interested in his political fortunes than guiding us through an unprecedented time of social and economic uncertainty. Indeed, in the middle of the pandemic, the president last month called for the boycott of Goodyear just to make a political point. He put thousands of Ohio jobs on the line as he irresponsibly tries to throw red meat to his political base. Devoid of competence and bereft of empathy, President Trump has time and again betrayed the working people he is sworn to serve and promised to deliver for.
Goodyear employs 3,300 people in Akron. These are good-paying jobs — many of them union. These are people who take pride in their work, in taking care of their families, in helping to strengthen their communities.
In just one tweet, President Trump put their livelihoods at risk. This comes after spending years making his own Trump-branded products overseas.
How insulting — not only to Goodyear workers, their families, and the State of Ohio, but also to their suppliers and retailers all over the country.
Maya Angelou once said, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”
This is who Donald Trump is. He has made it clear: He doesn’t care about workers and he’s willing to risk American jobs to try to save his own.
As workers struggle against a deadly pandemic, a painful recession and deep racial disparities, the labor movement also faces an additional burden: a union-busting president.
When he isn’t calling to boycott Goodyear and its thousands of union workers for petty personal reasons, Donald Trump is actively fighting against working people. That’s because, like so many CEOs and Wall Street robber-barons, he knows that if he can diminish union power, he can run the table on every American worker.
Across the state, Ohioans are reminding their communities about Trump’s attack on Goodyear — and making the case that their community could be next.
In Crain’s Cleveland Business:
Trump’s tweet about Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., calling for a boycott of a company that has been in business for more than 100 years and employs thousands of workers here in Ohio, is an attack on workers, their integrity and the good name of Goodyear Tire & Rubber worldwide. I know the Goodyear CEO, Richard Kramer. He is an honorable man, an exemplary leader, and dedicated to Goodyear and the region. He and Goodyear are shining stars in Northeast Ohio.
Some in our region may be thinking, well, I’m glad it was Goodyear and not Progressive Insurance, Parker Hannifin, Sherwin-Williams, Cleveland Clinic or J.M. Smucker Co.
That’s the problem, though. The next time, it could be Progressive. It could be Procter & Gamble. It could be Jeep. It could be Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. It could be Sherwin-Williams. Somewhere, somebody could fabricate a story on the internet about one of these companies, and Trump tweets about it, and boom — a company needs to waste time and resources, and possibly see workers laid off, because of a boycott incited by the president of the United States.
The point is this: Donald Trump doesn’t care about blue collar workers in Ohio or any other region. He said it didn’t really matter when General Motors closed its plant in Lordstown, where over a thousand jobs were lost and a community pushed into turmoil. Now, he said it didn’t matter if Goodyear workers lost their jobs because they would be able to find new jobs. How? Where? At what personal cost to these workers, their families and the region?
Donald Trump screwed over his contractors and workers when he was running casinos.
And now he’s screwing Ohio workers because his feelings got hurt.
Trump’s tweet about Goodyear, calling for a boycott of a company that has been in business for more than 100 years and employs thousands of workers here in Ohio, is an attack on workers.
Maybe you’re thinking, well, I’m glad it was Goodyear and not Cedar Point!
Time and time again, Donald Trump has broken his promises, and Ohio workers have paid the price for his reckless tweets and chaotic incompetence. It’s time to elect someone who cares about working people — it’s time to elect Joe Biden.
